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Thursday, March 22, 2018

Polish PM's father says Jews willingly walked into ghettos

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki's father claimed this week that Jews willingly entered ghettos during the German occupation of Poland to get away from their non-Jewish neighbors, a comment Poland's government distanced itself from Thursday.

The comment by Kornel Morawiecki, a senior lawmaker and father of the Polish prime minister, is the latest episode in weeks of bitterness that have erupted over a controversial new Holocaust speech law.

Kornel Morawiecki claimed in a recent interview that Jews were not forced into ghettos by Germans but went willingly because "they were told there would be an enclave where they could get away from nasty Poles."

The comment is historically inaccurate. It is also seems to minimize the tragedy of the Jews while at the same time suggesting they partly brought the tragedy upon themselves out of anti-Polish hatred.

The deputy foreign minister, Bartosz Cichocki, said the comment does not reflect the position of the Polish government.